James Kynge

I mean, you know, it is complex, obviously, and it's delicate as well.

What would you say?

Yes, I would agree with that last point.

And just coming back to the Taiwan question, I mean, I have also read the idea that this could make China less likely to launch some kind of military adventure against Taiwan, you know, in the near term horizon.

And yeah, I mean, you know, that seems to be fair as an analysis, but I just feel that we know so little about

about how decisions are really made in the Central Military Commission and at the top levels of the Chinese Communist Party, that it's a bit of a leap even to have an interpretation like that.

I mean, it could equally well be, it seems to me, that if Xi Jinping is the only man in charge, and he wants to launch a military adventure against Taiwan, then maybe he gets his way.

So

So I think you could read that both ways.

I think the only takeaway that I have from this whole thing that I'm sure of is that the opacity of the system is the risk.

The opacity of China's political system and particularly the military decision-making system, it being a complete black box,

is a great risk for us in the West because we just have no way of tapping into it.

I don't think any government around the world, including the US, has regular high-level contacts with the People's Liberation Army or any other military body in China.

And so...

To me, that is the key risk here.

And it's just so hard to know how to call it.

I also saw that the price of gold, I think today, went above $5,000 an ounce.

I'm not sure if that's connected to this either, but that may be a bit of a stretch.

But I must say, you know, we so rarely focus on military issues.

This one came out of left field, as it were.